Twist of fate saved me from Nagasaki bomb

Former prisoner of war George Housego explains how the factory he was put to work in was destroyed by the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, weeks after he was moved to another location.

7:00AM BST 09 Aug 2015

Mr Housego was taken as a prisoner of war in Java and eventually moved to Nagasaki, Japanto work in a factory.

He described his first contact with the Japanese, "they took us to the camp, gave us all Japanese clean clothing, shoes because we had nothing and then they put us to work".

The former prisoner of war narrowly missed being hit by the nuclear bomb that finally persuaded Japan to surrender, but some were not so lucky.

"We had to move out of there just before the bomb dropped. But some people had become so essential that they kept them in the foundry and they were actually in there when the bomb dropped."

Mr Housego described the immediate aftermath of the bomb blast, "as we went back to Nagasaki we saw the tops of trees had come off, and as you went in you saw devastation everywhere, absolute devastation".

However he reamins resolute that Allied Forces made the right decision, "I've thought about it a lot, and I know for a fact that if we hadn't of dropped it, we would never have been freed".